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New Website to Attract Immigrants to Oxford County

Wednesday, 12 September 2012 04:20

A new website launched by the county is available in over 65 languages, aiming to cater to immigrating residents. It was created by several community partners, employment officers, and newcomers to the area. Executive Director of Community Employment Services Jeff Surridge says it's extremely user friendly. "A lot of the sites were page after page of data dumps. As a newcomer, if you're dealing with English as a second language, it's an overwhelming task to fair out the information. This uses smart architecture so that any information that you require you should be able to get with two clicks of a mouse," said Surridge. The portal is part of a larger strategy to attract immigrants to strengthen the local labour force. Warden Don McKay says this is an exciting opportunity for the county. "We want to really roll out the welcome mat for new immigrants. So, when they're curious and looking on the website and searches and they click on this site, they'll quickly get the opportunity to say lets look a little further on what's available," said McKay. The site is available in English and 65 other languages. Humarira Latifi is a newcomer to the area and helped contribute to the new website. She wishes it was around before her family moved from Manitoba. "I think if we had this before we would have had more information that we didn't have. We actually had to come in and look around. I think this will be a great help to newcomers and people who want to move here," said Latifi. The website was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship as well as other community partners. Take a tour of the new portal at www.WelcomeToOxford.ca

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